Is there anyway to get rid of the dickheads that post irrelevant adverts under anonymous usernames? I enjoy this board as being one of the rare spam free areas of the web, which makes seeing these ads (like the load posted today) all the more annoying.. :evil:

/RANT

Aye…. let’s find a way to restrict their ability to post.

Well I believe gr00vy had implemented some changes to try and stop them, but they’re obviously cunning c***s.  Have faith in gr00vy I’m sure he’ll find a way

Totally agree with you guys!
Spam free forum!!!

Sorry about this guys and gals. I have implemented changes that block spambots from automatically spamming the forum. The latest round of stuff was done manually by someone (which is even more despicable).

I’ll continue to research ways to block the spam and normally the only stuff that gets through long enough are the ones that are posted when I’m sleeping.

Go gr00vy go gr00vy.. But what’s with the refresh?  This site keeps refreshing all the time.. the way to stop it is to login.. weird…  :?  maybe one of the strangeness for site update as you mentioned..

What a sad individual that must have been.  I really hope they don’t own a TR/T/S/X :shock:

If you haven’t been following the other thread. You need to clear out your cache and cookies for this site and everything should be ok. It basically occurs if you’re trying to access the site at:

http://siliconpopculture.com/sonytr

as opposed to

http://www.siliconpopculture.com/sonytr

That should solve your problem…or, you can simply just leave yourself logged in when you access the site.

If you haven’t been following the other thread. You need to clear out your cache and cookies for this site and everything should be ok. It basically occurs if you’re trying to access the site at:

http://siliconpopculture.com/sonytr

as opposed to

http://www.siliconpopculture.com/sonytr

That should solve your problem…or, you can simply just leave yourself logged in when you access the site.

OK gotcha.. it’s working now.. 

How about just banning the IP of the people who post like this?

[quote author=“Rahul”]How about just banning the IP of the people who post like this?

I’m already doing that. The spammers are smarter than that and are using proxies to use new IP addresses all the time. So, it’s an endless battle against them. Even if I forced everyone to register they would still actually register and spam until I deleted their accounts.

One thought I have is banning new users from starting new topics until they’ve posted X number of times. Of course, this would cause legitimate new members problems and they would be forced to post nonsense before posting what they need to post.

We’ll see. The problem isn’t really that bad just yet so I’ll continue to look at this as we move forward.

[quote author=“gr00vy0ne”][quote author=“Rahul”]How about just banning the IP of the people who post like this?

I’m already doing that. The spammers are smarter than that and are using proxies to use new IP addresses all the time. So, it’s an endless battle against them. Even if I forced everyone to register they would still actually register and spam until I deleted their accounts.

One thought I have is banning new users from starting new topics until they’ve posted X number of times. Of course, this would cause legitimate new members problems and they would be forced to post nonsense before posting what they need to post.

We’ll see. The problem isn’t really that bad just yet so I’ll continue to look at this as we move forward.

Honestly, it’s odd that we’ve been getting attacked recently. I am on much much larger forums that don’t have the # of spammers that we do. I assume its because we can post without registering so maybe the spammers spread the word that it’s a bit easier.

I know you’ve been trying a lot, and I report to you as many as I see, I don’t think it’s something you can stop…just urge members not to follow the links, without making money off of it, there is no reason to do it.

I also agree that making X # of posts before being able to start is a bad idea…

1. I’d rather spammers create a new topic then post on other topics
2. Newbies post when they really need help, they don’t have time to build up a post count (this was mentioned, but I agree).

Erik

How about having threads that were not originated by users with a predetermined post count (say 25 or 50) go into a “Newbie” forum.  Newbie threads would not show up in the “Last 5”.  When another user with a post count above the threshold replies to that thread (could be as simple as just to say “legit thread”), the thread is moved from the Newbie forum back into the forum it was originally posted in, and it appears in the Last 5.  Since there are usually lurkers in here around the clock, it wouldn’t be too hard to ensure the legitimate Newbie threads are properly vetted.

There would have to be clear warning against regulars posting replies to spam threads, to prevent spammers from trying to make alternate accounts to de-newbify their spam threads.  If a spam thread is made legit by reply from a 50+ user, that user has his post count reduced to zero.  Repeat offences might result in banning.  Additionally, users with a post count of say 200+ or so could also reply to spam threads with a special keyword, which would instantly delete the thread.

[quote author=“tifosiv122”]I also agree that making X # of posts before being able to start is a bad idea…

Agreed. How many people’s first post here was a cry for help from the celestial helpdesk?

The two methods that came to my mind first, not being able to post a topic with a duplicate title within a 24 hour period and putting domain names into a “bad words” file, probably wouldn’t be that effective against these guys. There’s just too much variability here.

jashsu: Ouch. That idea is screaming for abuse.

Have you thought about forcing people to register in the forums first, before they can just start posting at free will as a “guest?”

We’ve discussed that before and decided against it since most of the people here started off as anonymous. Also, forcing registration doesn’t help since the latest spammers have actually manually registered account and then spammed.